029 Supporting Your Spouse Through Chronic Illness: Matt & Latricia’s Story of Strength and Understanding

Summary (100–150 words):💬

This episode dives into what it really looks like to support a spouse living with chronic illness. Matt shares the long, emotional journey to his MCTD diagnosis — from years of pain and self-doubt to finally finding answers. Latricia offers honest insight into the emotional weight of watching someone you love struggle and how she’s learned to listen, show up, and advocate without losing herself in the process. Together, they talk about the hard days, the moments of laughter that keep them grounded, and what love looks like when life doesn’t go as planned. Whether you’re the one who’s sick or the one standing beside them, this conversation will remind you that you’re not alone in the struggle or the strength it takes to keep going.

Tools, Resources & Mentions:🛠️

Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD) overview – Arthritis Foundation

Invisible Illness Club Podcast archives – “You’re Not Lazy: The Truth About Chronic Illness and Invisible Effort”

Guest Info:🙋‍♀️

Names: Matt & Latricia Davis

Bio: Matt and Latricia Davis have been married 14 years and have navigated multiple health diagnoses together, including Matt’s mixed connective tissue disease and epilepsy. They share their story to bring awareness to the unseen challenges couples face when chronic illness enters the picture — and to remind others that love can still thrive in hard seasons.

April Aramanda: Matt and Latricia, I’m so glad you’re here. Matt, you’ve been very open about navigating your MCTD, mixed connective tissue disease diagnosis and challenges that come with it. And Latricia, you’ve shared how important listening and showing up has been in your role as a spouse. So, I can’t wait for listeners to hear your story together. We’re so glad to have you here. Well, you know what?

Matthew Davis: you.

April Aramanda: Can you both share um a little bit about your journey? What Matt’s diagnosis process was like, how this impacted your life as a couple? So, let’s start, I guess, with Matt. Maybe you can kind of talk about the diagnosis process and then we’ll have Latricia come in and talk to

Matthew Davis: So, um, my journey with mixed t mixed connective tissue disease probably started in about, uh, 2018. Um, I noticed that my neck was hurting and it wasn’t the typical migraine that I usually get.

Matthew Davis: Um, it was pain in my upper neck and I kept telling my migraine specialist, “Hey, my neck hurts and my migraine medication is not helping at all.” So, one day she said, “Come into my office. I’ll do an injection in your neck and we’ll see if that helps.” Well, she did one up at the base of my skull and it helped and I got to the point where I was needing them more and more often. So, she referred me to a physical therapist. They did MRIs and they said, “Yeah, you have wear and tear arthritis. It was minor in my neck.” And I said, “Okay, well, what can we do about it?” They said I could do something called a radio frequency ablation or an RFA and that and physical therapy. started intensive the physical therapy as well as the RFAS that lasted about three years and um things in my neck got better but at the time and we’re originally from Texas. We were living in Colorado. We moved back to Texas and everything was fine except winter of 2023, my hands started hurting and I figured, okay, well, it’s just wear and tear arthritis.

Matthew Davis: My hands are hurting because it’s cold, you know? I I’m I just need to take some ibuprofen. Well, I took ibuprofen. It didn’t help. And I kind of went with that and just took Tylenol, ibuprofen, asked my PCP, “What can I do?” He said, “Well, um, we can try a different NSAID and see how that helps.” And I exhausted all options with my PCP. And he was like, “We got to send you to a rheatologist.” And I said, “Well, why do I need a rheatologist?” Because when I saw the physical therapist, they said, “You don’t have rheumatoid arthritis in your hands or anything.” And I said, “Well, I don’t have rheumatoid arthritis. They did blood tests. They you don’t have that.” And I said, “You know what? I’m not going to see a rheatologist.” I just ignored it up until um probably May of 2024. So May of last year, I told my PCP again, hey, can you go ahead and just humor me and put in that referral again for the rheatologist?

Matthew Davis: And I said, I’ll just see the rheatologist and see what she says. And so ended up seeing her in August of last year and it was a virtual visit and she said we’ll try another and said and see how it goes and then I want to see you in office. Um saw her in office cuz the inside wasn’t working. And so, um, she said, “I’m going to do some blood work and a bunch of X-rays.” And I got the results back and she said, “Um, you know, your your hands have uh inflammatory damage in the joints in your hands.” And I she said that explains why your hands are hurting. And um but you don’t have the markers for rheumatoid arthritis. And I said, well, if I have inflammatory damage, how do I not have the markers for rheumatoid arthritis? Right? That doesn’t make any sense because if you have inflammatory arthritis, it’s usually rheumatoid arthritis. She said, “Well, you can have Exactly. So,

April Aramanda: Nothing’s typical about chronic illness, though. Yeah.

Matthew Davis: if you have inflammatory damage, what how is it not rheumatoid arthritis?” That’s right. She said, “Well, you can have rheumatoid arthritis without having the markers for rheumatoid arthritis.” And I didn’t know that. She said, “You have the option of trying a stronger insaid or you can try a steroid.” I said, “Insides haven’t worked. So, I’ll try a steroid, which was prennazone.” And gosh, that medication was hard.

April Aramanda: I’m on it right now for the second time.

Matthew Davis: it.

April Aramanda: So, I totally understand where you’re coming from with that. Prednazone is a killer.

Matthew Davis: Yeah. And but it helped it helped so much.

April Aramanda: Yeah.

Matthew Davis: And it helped my hands. It helped my feet. It helped everything that was going on. And the thing my rheumatologist didn’t tell me about was something we didn’t discuss until January. And between September, August, September of 2024 up until December and January of 2024 25, I became very angry at my rheatologist because I started having more symptoms of mixed connective tissue disease And I try not to do a lot of research on it, but my rheatologist said, and through messages through my doctor’s office portal that you have symptoms of it.

Matthew Davis: And she said, “But I’m we’re not going to talk about that.” And I got very mad at her. And I was mad because she wasn’t doing anything, but she was doing her job.

April Aramanda: Right.

Matthew Davis: And I felt like I wasn’t being heard. But then in December, we were on vacation and I was exhausted.

April Aramanda: Thank you.

Matthew Davis: And in January, we got back from vacation and um she said, “We’re going to do another test. It’s a blood test.” and it confirmed the blood test that we did back in August of last year, which was one thing that tested positive both times, which is anti-RMP antibodies, which and then another one, ANA antibodies, which are both markers for mixed connective tissue disease and she said, “You have mixed connective tissue disease because of what these tests show and that’s that’s that’s how we’re going to treat you.”

April Aramanda: friend.

Matthew Davis: And I’m like, gosh. and she had put me on methtoresate and I’m like I’ve been on prennazone and she had put me on methate back in October and I was mad at her for that because I felt like it wasn’t doing anything and she didn’t tell me that it was going to take you know 6 eight months for it to work.

Matthew Davis: She just said, “Try it and see if it works.” And I was mad because it wasn’t working. I was still on Prennazone. And now I’ve got a doctor telling me that I have mixed connective tissue disease and I’m getting flares in my ankle and my I’m getting all these other symptoms and I am self gaslighting because I’m Like, I don’t care what the tests say.

April Aramanda: We all do.

Matthew Davis: I’m sitting here telling myself I don’t have it.

April Aramanda: Well, what was this like for you to watch all this happening?

Matthew Davis: It was hard. Um, I remember it was hard, but I also say a little bit of it we were already prepared because Matt also developed epilepsy as an adult. And so like we’ve had this process in essence of disease, not like illnesses, chronic illnesses that have come out of nowhere that we’ve had to adjust.

April Aramanda: right?

Matthew Davis: And so I remember in 2018 when he was complaining that his mech was hurting um with us living in Colorado, we were both in the education system at the time.

Matthew Davis: Um and him having the surgeries and having to go and having to pick him up. But the, you know, his migraines were better, but then he started complaining of other things. Um, I think the hardest for us has really been the medication and the struggles of not of things not working or the impact because you said you’ve been on prednazone, you know, that it impacts your mood and things and, you know, we have a everything and we have a a small child.

April Aramanda: everything.

Matthew Davis: Um, and so it’s hard watching when he’s struggling when I can see that he’s in pain because I want to fix it but I know I can’t. Um, and then watching what it does to him that he doesn’t have the energy to do things with us as a family or to watch the things that he enjoys doing and going out to do not being able to do it anymore because it’s just too much.

April Aramanda: Right. Right.

Matthew Davis: Um, and so that’s been the hard part. But like going through this process, you know, I kept telling him when he’d get frustrated, well then ask questions.

Matthew Davis: You have to stand up for yourself. You have to advocate for yourself.

April Aramanda: Right.

Matthew Davis: Um, and then even when he was self- gaslighting and saying, “I don’t have this.” I’m like, “Well, you know what? Even if you do, we’ll get through it together. We’ve gotten through all the other diagnoses. We’ll just keep trucking along and whatever comes our way.

April Aramanda: Sounds like it was a little easier for you to be able to adjust than him necessarily. Um, you said that support means always listening and being there. So, what does that look like in the dayto day? because that’s the hard part is the daytoday. We can get our diagnosis, we can have tons of support around that and then we have to live life and that’s hard sometimes. So what is what does this listening and being there that type of support look like in y’all’s dayto day?

Matthew Davis: I’d say for me, and it’s not I will say it’s not always easy. The day-to-day is not always easy.

April Aramanda: No.

Matthew Davis: Um, but it’s, you know, listening when he says he’s in pain. Um, listening and being supportive. what do we need to do? It’s not always, you know, always what I want to do because sometimes it’s so unbearable that he has to go like to an ER to get checked to get treatment. And we have spent enough time in the ERS in our in our marriage because of different diagnosis um that it’s not always fun. But it’s that you know what, as much as I don’t want to go, um I know this is what you need, so we will go and we’ll sit there. And that’s, you know, it’s those things. It’s understanding because the predinazone does make him very angry. Um, and understanding he’ll warn me, well, I’m on a predinazone taper again. Okay. Well, then I know for the next however many days you’re on this taper that you might have you might be more angry and that I have to show compassion to that.

April Aramanda: Yeah.

Matthew Davis: It doesn’t mean that sometimes I don’t get angry.

Matthew Davis: Um, but you know, we work through it. We might yell a couple of times, but we’re still there for each other. And just like knowing that I am here for him and that even if it’s hard, even on his bad days, his rough days, that I hope he knows that I can that I’m here and that I’m listening and that I, you know, I want to be supportive. And if it’s not working, I’m always going to tell him. Then tell your doctor. That’s what I always tell him.

April Aramanda: Yeah, I can’t fix it.

Matthew Davis: Tell your doctor.

April Aramanda: Talk to your doctor. So, Matt, then what has been the most helpful to you from Patric? Excuse me, Latricia. I have I have a Patricia that I talked to earlier and it just came out of my mouth. Uh, in terms of support, what’s been the most helpful from her?

Matthew Davis: the almost unconditional understanding. Um, and that hit me while we were on vacation last year. Uh, because I told her, I am too exhausted to go out and do something today.

Matthew Davis: And she said, “It’s okay. I understand.” And that just hit me like a rock because I was like, you know, I can’t believe you understand that. And that just hit me so hard.

April Aramanda: That type of support is so important. My husband is like that, too. Uh, unbelievably supportive. Can’t always understand what I’m going through, but the thought that he understands I’m not okay right now. That’s I think that’s what you’re talking about. Um, with her support, what is sometimes the hardest thing for you to receive?

Matthew Davis: Um the going the hardest thing for me to receive is probably going to an ER and being told you’re okay because I know I don’t feel well and the doctors will tell me your blood tests look fine and

April Aramanda: Labs look normal. They’re going to put that on our headstones when we all die, man.

Matthew Davis: I’m like I am not Okay. And then they discharged me and I’m like I do not feel okay. Like I am not okay.

Matthew Davis: Like that is the hardest part.

April Aramanda: Um, Latricia, you’ve talked about um the isolation that isn’t always visible um both for both of you actually. So, Latricia, let me hear from you first. What is that isolation look like for you and how has that shown up in your life?

Matthew Davis: I think for me I I look at the isolation one of through the like format and looking at it through Matt is, as I said, when he’s having flare-ups, when he’s not feeling well, he doesn’t feel like going places. So then I know it it’s creating an isolation for him that he can’t be involved. And with that, it also it’s hard, you know, as a family. Our daughter is four, so she doesn’t always understand.

April Aramanda: Oh, wow.

Matthew Davis: Um, she’s grown up knowing that daddy doesn’t feel well for one reason or another. um and sadly recognizes hospitals and says daddy. But uh she Yes.

April Aramanda: It’s funny and not funny at the same time. I’m telling you.

Matthew Davis: But like I like for him and for our family it’s hard because I know he wants to be there for her and then and for us and the isolation that he doesn’t get to do our family things together.

Matthew Davis: Um, but also it’s hard sometimes for us as a family because our friends don’t always fully understand. Like we have friends with different illnesses, different but they don’t always fully understand that one we can’t go somewhere or two why Matt’s not there with us.

April Aramanda: Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew Davis: And so that that kind of isolation that nobody really under fully understands what we as a family go through.

April Aramanda: Matt, what about you?

Matthew Davis: Um the isolation is hard because um it’s like I’m cut off and I I I don’t know. I just I feel like some days I’m letting my daughter down. And and this is hard. Sorry.

April Aramanda: No, you’re okay here.

Matthew Davis: This is hard.

April Aramanda: I will I will speak into this some for our listeners. Um, take your breath. Take your time. Um, the isolation that comes with chronic illness, we all know it. Um, we all feel it and our spouses feel it sometimes and our children. What I will tell you is that on the plus side, if there’s a plus side to any of this, your daughter will grow up more compassionate and more understanding of people than most children because she is going to watch you struggle.

April Aramanda: And when the time comes, I’m sure you’ll talk to her about what’s going on and all that. Obviously, four years old, not the time, right? She can’t even begin to understand. But she will grow up a better person having been able to love you, be with you, and understand what you’re going through to an extent. So, hold tight to that because she really really will.

Matthew Davis: Yeah.

April Aramanda: Um, let’s let’s move on to how kind of y’all are coping together.

Matthew Davis: Yeah.

April Aramanda: Um, so what has surprised you about each other through this journey? So Matt, we’ll go with you first. What has surprised you about Latricia as you’ve gone through this journey together?

Matthew Davis: Um, I would say that um, you know what? All of it. All of it. All of it surprised me. You know, the fact that she has just the fact that she’s stuck with me for 14 years now and I haven’t driven her off yet.

April Aramanda: I think she’s there to stay, Matt.

April Aramanda: I think she is.

Matthew Davis: She is here to stay at 14 years. Gosh, that’s a long time.

April Aramanda: It is a long time.

Matthew Davis: And for some reason, for some reason, she hasn’t she hasn’t run screaming yet.

April Aramanda: And congratulations. I feel the same way about my husband, so it’s okay. All right, Latricia.

Matthew Davis: And you know, Oh, go ahead.

April Aramanda: Oh, I’m sorry. Okay, so Latricia, what about you? What has surprised you about Matt through all of this?

Matthew Davis: I think, and this might shock him, is that even when he’s at his lowest, when he’s the most frustrated, when he doesn’t, he’s, you know, doesn’t feel well, he’s always like, I don’t think I can do this anymore. I can’t take another diagnosis. I just can’t handle anymore. Yet his resilience even in those low moments of I know and he’ll say this, I can’t do this anymore, but I want to be here for our daughter. And it’s like finding that resilience in him that I always knew that was there, but he just sometimes hides it.

Matthew Davis: And so it’s those strong moments of I know that he does not feel well. I know that this is hard to constantly have a different diagnosis. You know, he said, “We’ve been married 14 years.” He developed epilepsy two years into our marriage and it took them two years, two and a half years to even figure out pseudo what was going on and to treat it properly.

April Aramanda: Yeah.

Matthew Davis: And so, like it has almost been a diagnosis on a regular basis. And so constantly facing um and that resilience he’s just like I can’t do another thing.

April Aramanda: I understand.

Matthew Davis: I can’t have another. But then he he still fights through it. Yeah.

April Aramanda: That’s awesome. Okay, so we know that Matt has a lot of low days because of all of this. We all, you know, anyone with chronic illness is going to have a lot of low days emotionally, physically, all of the above. But that doesn’t mean that our spouse doesn’t have low days also. And sometimes they can correspond and be on the same day, which is always fun, right?

April Aramanda: Oh, I’m so sorry. My dogs are going crazy. Um, so how do you kind of tag team that, especially because you have a four-year-old when one or both of you are running low emotionally or physically or whatever the case may be?

Matthew Davis: Um, I left because the low days for both and when it’s both of us it’s usually like I’m one of those people who one wants to fix everything but then two because we have you I’ve always been this

April Aramanda: Yeah.

Matthew Davis: way even before we were married I just kind of bottle everything up because I have to be strong for my you have to like I have to be strong I have to be strong for my family I have to be strong for Matt I have to be strong for our daughter um and so usually when we’re both at our low points.

April Aramanda: Right.

Matthew Davis: It’s the point where I’m finally about to break and so then we end up having our little yell fest and then we move on. Yeah. Or it’s more like um depending on what day of the week it is, uh we uh turn on the TV and wait until the kid falls asleep on the couch.

Matthew Davis: And then we managed to uh fall asleep on the couch, too.

April Aramanda: Sometimes numbing out is a good thing for moments like that. I mean, we’ve done it too where we just sit and watch a show and we don’t talk to each other and we wait till we’ve calmed down. So, in this vein then, what do you do as a couple to keep joy and some normaly in the middle of all of this hard stuff?

Matthew Davis: So, I think that the one thing we’ve always done is not go to had mad at each other. So, um you know, uh when we first got together, we always told each other, “We’re never going to go to bed mad at each other.” And I think that has uh No, no, we don’t.

April Aramanda: So, do do you just stay up all night?

Matthew Davis: We always may we always have talked about, you know, I she even just a couple of nights ago, she said, you know, you’re sleeping on the couch if you’re going to be such an ass.

April Aramanda: Okay.

Matthew Davis: And I still went in the bedroom and talked to her while she was laying in bed looking.

April Aramanda: Yep.

Matthew Davis: And I’m like, you’re not hearing the end of me yet. And so I think that’s we work it out.

April Aramanda: So, you talk it out and work it out.

Matthew Davis: Yeah, I think that’s that’s helped a lot.

April Aramanda: That’s awesome. I think there’s only been one maybe two times in the seven years my husband and I have been married that I’ve actually gone to sleep mad. Um because most of the time we do the same thing. We kind of calm ourselves down and we talk it out before we go to bed. So that’s awesome.

Matthew Davis: Yeah. And another thing about it has also been that um I am kind of goofy. I tend to I I got it from my dad and um I tend to not take things too seriously. I’ve I’ve always been a goofball. Even while I was growing up in school, I was a glass clown.

April Aramanda: That’s good.

Matthew Davis: So, um I never thinking I’ve never taken things too seriously. So, maybe that plays into the mixed connective tissue disease and the whole self gaslighting or something.

Matthew Davis: I don’t know. But, um I just I’ve never never taken things too seriously.

April Aramanda: That’s good.

Matthew Davis: So,

April Aramanda: All right. So, as we wrap up, I have a few more questions for the two of you. Um, for someone listening who’s supporting a spouse through chronic illness like Latricia is, what do you wish you had known at the beginning?

Matthew Davis: Oh, I probably wish, and this is hard, um, I’d probably say I wish I would have known a little bit more or I wish I would have known to ask more questions of the doctor. like really thinking of what does this look like on a dayto-day?

April Aramanda: Right.

Matthew Davis: What are like the medications you’re going to be prescribing? What should we be on the lookout for for side effects? What, you know, what are going to be the some of the changes? And I know it’s different for each person because they react differently to medication, but having a general understanding.

April Aramanda: Yeah.

Matthew Davis: I had a little bit of that because of other diagnoses, but it was still with this one and watching how in essence how fast it has progressed um of really knowing what that looks like and how to be

April Aramanda: All

Matthew Davis: there more. Um cuz in the beginning it was like especially in 2018 when it was with the it just started with his neck and it was like well it’s just migraines or it’s you know we didn’t know then where it

April Aramanda: right.

Matthew Davis: would go and I wish we would have and I would have asked more questions to be more supportive and mixed connective tissue disease is like it’s it’s sometimes you know It’s like you have the flu.

April Aramanda: Yeah. Well,

Matthew Davis: It feels like you’re having the flu because it’s a it’s a disease where it’s a a a um a disease that kind of overlaps with other diseases. It’s got features of lupus and rayon’s phenomenon and um rheumatoid arthritis, but it’s your connective tissues and you know there’s things you can see and there’s things you can’t see.

April Aramanda: Right.

Matthew Davis: and Rayod’s phenomenon. I can show someone my hands when I’m having Rayod’s phenomenon, but I can’t show people when I’m tired. And I think that’s the hardest part. Mhm.

April Aramanda: Yeah.

Matthew Davis: So, um, I can show someone when my ankle is swollen because I’m having a flare of rheumatoid arthritis, but I can’t show them when my muscles feel like mush, you know, and not everybody understands that necessarily. That’s the questions and wish the doctors like that give any advice is to ask the questions what are the visible and potentially invisible that we should expect and that you know how can I know these so that I can be prepared to help and support

April Aramanda: So true. There’s so much I I get. I have um fibromyalgia, anklosin spondylitis, POTS, kidney issues right now, thyroid issues, you know, I’ve got the whole gamut of things. And I can tell you that flu-l like symptom that that feeling like you have the flu is the worst because I call it bone deep pain. Um because it just goes so deep and so hard. Um, if you could leave listeners with one encouragement about love, marriage, and chronic illness, Matt, what would it be for you?

Matthew Davis: Um, I think the biggest the biggest word you can tell someone is the biggest few words that you can tell someone is to have hope and know that there is always there are always people that are going to be there that understand and support you and to don’t bottle it up.

Matthew Davis: And um it’s okay to feel an angry.

April Aramanda: All those feelings are bad. Patricia, what about you?

Matthew Davis: I think for me it goes back to our vow of we say in sickness and in health and for so many people and you know there are so many couples to never have to face this and for that I am thankful I would never wish anyone to have to face a chronic illness um but when it’s there remember that vow remember that you promise to be there in sickness and in health and you never know right

April Aramanda: Yes.

Matthew Davis: now in this moment how much your partner needs you and how you could need them in the future, too. And so, the best way to show love and compassion is to truly live your vows.

April Aramanda: Yeah, love that.

Matthew Davis: Yeah.

April Aramanda: Well, Matt and Leasha, thank you so much for being part of the show today. I’m so excited that people get to hear from a couple on what it’s like to live with chronic illness, but also support someone with chronic illness at the same time. Thank you so much,

Matthew Davis: Thank you, April.